The Empty Cafe
by CheshireTears
Summary: You are alone... and you can't even remember how you got here, actually. *Somewhat inspired by copious hours spent listening to Welcome to Night Vale. But not actually explicitly a fanfic, in all technicality.*


**The Empty Cafe**

_Note from the author: This may be the product of a recently discovered obsession with _"Welcome to Night Vale_._" _It is possible that this story arose from too little sleep, too much caffeine and time at work, and having spent the proceeding thirty-six listening to WTNV non-stop. Maybe I just wanted to write in second person because who writes in second person anymore?_

_This is all possible. I'll let you decide._

You sit alone in a cafe.

No, literally, there is nobody else there. You can't even remember if somebody showed you to your table, or has taken your order. You simply sit, looking up from the computer you can't remember turning on to glance around with the startled realization that _you are the only one there_.

Beside you is a half-eaten cheeseburger and slightly demolished fries. A small pool of sticky red substance melts on the still-warm fries. A steaming cup of coffee slowly cools near your left elbow. The coffee is black, but when you sip it, you taste the addition of nearly twenty packets of sugar.

It is just the way you like it, but you don't remember how the sugar came to be in the coffee.

Come to think of it, you can't remember anything of this day. You glance outside and notice that the sky is the deep abyss of night. Panic fills you for some reason that you cannot identify. You must run you are late you're late...

For what? Does it matter? You must hurry, you must get to where you are supposed to be or else...

You cannot remember that part either. But it must be important.

So you look around you again and remember that _you are the only one there_. You stand up slowly, glancing around, as though someone will pop their head up from a booth and reassure you that you are not alone.

You walk over to the counter, still looking for some sign of humanity. You find none. You do find a small silver bell next to a sign on the counter that says, "Ring for service."

So naturally, you ring the bell.

And you wait.

You think that surely this small metal object will solve the dilemma and somebody will show up in this empty place.

You are wrong.

You wait and you wait, thinking maybe somebody will come. But there isn't even any noise from the back room where you assume the kitchen is. You hear a radio drone with the smooth jazzy tones of some reporter whose voice soothes that panic until it is only a buzzing, hidden underneath intent. You still feel worry, as well as the need to find someone, anyone, but you no longer feel panicked.

You wonder why you were panicked to begin with.

You head back to your table, where you spot a check, hidden under the edge of your cooled coffee cup. You shake your head, wondering how you didn't notice it before.

You leave the appropriate amount of money on the table, as you cannot find anyone to give it to.

You begin to shut down your laptop, ready to go home and leave this strange place. You just want to sleep and forget about this strange day.

As you close out your Facebook (noting the date because look, it's your mother's birthday, and you hope you remembered to send her a card before the strange amnesia set in) and the browser you had open, you notice a Word document that had been buried underneath the open windows.

Naturally, you click on it. (There is, after all, no use in losing whatever you had been working on. It could be important. If only you could remember.)

It is a good thing that the laptop is still on the table.

As you flee the cafe for the dark outside, the words on the screen blink up into the empty cafe.

_They read everything that has happened to you since you looked up in the cafe a few minutes before._

You leave just as the voice on the radio says his farewell.

_ Goodnight, reader. Goodnight, Night Vale._

_Another note from the author: The end is kind of dumb._

_No, it's really dumb, actually._

_And then I realized that the end sounds an awful lot like the episode, "A Story About You."_

_I'm sorry._

_This is obviously inspired by the AMAZING podcast series, _"Welcome to Night Vale." _Which I am most certainly not obsessed with. Not at all._


End file.
